A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Cycle of Seasons

I like this excerpt from Parker Palmer's book "Let Your Life Speak" - I know people who say, "Life is like a game of chance - some win and some lose." But that metaphor can create a fatalism about losing or an obsession with beating the odds. I know of other people who say, "Life is like a battlefield - you get the enemy or the enemy gets you." But that metaphor can result in enemies around every corner and a constant sense of siege.

Seasons is a wise metaphor for the movement of life. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield or a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or joy, loss or gain, darkness or light, but encourages us to embrace it all - and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.

If we live close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as a metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era comes from manufacturing - we don't believe that we "grow" our lives - we believe that we "make" them. From an early age, we absorb our culture's arrogant conviction that we manufacture everything, reducing the world to mere "raw material" that lacks all value until we impose our designs and labour on it.

Unlike "raw material" on which we make all the demands, we need to reform our culture and ego toward ways of thinking and doing and being that are rooted in respect for the living ecology of life. We are here not only to transform the world but also to be transformed. Transformation is difficult so it is good to know that there is comfort as well as challenge in the metaphor of life as a cycle of seasons. Illumined by this image, we see that we are not alone in the universe. We are participants in a vast community of being, and if we open ourselves to its guidance, we can learn anew how to live in this great and gracious community of truth. We can, and we must - if we want our sciences to be humane, our institutions to be sustaining, our healings to be deep, our lives to be true.

Which one am I?

I am earth - the soil that supports and nurtures living things. I give solid footing to those around me.

I am wind - the power that sweeps away old fears and carries new ideas like springtime.

I am fire - igniting the power and passion in others. I give warmth on cold, wintry nights and clear the way for new beginnings.

I am water - irresistible. No obstacle can stop me. I go over, under, around and through. I change forms to steam or ice or rain. I bring life wherever I go. I touch everyone I meet.

This wonderful poem entitled "Meditation" by Laurie Beth Jones describes the kind of impact we can have on this world. I think in different situations and with different people, we may choose to take on a different role.

Formula for Happiness

Recently I was watching the BBC documentary "The Happiness Formula" and discovered that the secret to a long and healthy life is simply to be happy. Having that disposition can actually add an average of 9 years to your life. Apparently, once we have a home, food and clothes, having extra money does not seem to make us happier.

The key ingredients to happiness are: (1) having social relationships (apparently friendships can ward off germs!); (2) having meaning in life – a belief in something bigger than yourself; and (3) having goals that are linked to your values and which you enjoy. So much for hankering after that condominium or BMW.

Messy Nests

This is a wonderful Russian fable quoted in Kegan & Lahey's book "How the way we talk can CHANGE the way we work: 7 languages for transformation" (I highly recommend it).

One day a woodsman set out to the forest to chop wood. As he walked across the icy expanse, he spied a little bird freezing to death on the frozen tundra. He took pity on it, picked it up and held it close as he made his way to the forest. The little bird drew warmth from his body and began to come back to life. But when the woodman reached the forest, he had a problem. He needed both arms to cut down the trees and both arms to carry the wood home. He could not longer keep the bird, but he did not want to reconsign it to the icy end from which he had just saved it. He was not sure what to do. Then he noticed in the distance that a herd of cattle must have just passed by because they left their brown, round calling cards dotting the horizon. The woodsman thought the solution to his problem might be found in those cowpies, still fresh and steaming in the artic air. He walked over and selected the biggest, steamiest cowpie he could find and nestled the bird into it. He went on his business, chopped his wood and went home. The little bird hunkered down in his new home - this rich, fertile, fragrant, organic environment. He felt so good about it that he began to sing so well and so loud that a lone wolf not far away, followed the sound to its source and ate the little bird for lunch. The moral of the story is:

1. Whoever got you into this big stinking mess like the one you have is not necessarily your enemy.
2. Whoever gets you out of the mess may not be your friend.
3. When you are up to your neck in it, don't sing!

Ice Cream

This is my favourite celebration and comfort food (yes, I'm a dessert lover). The feeling of anticipation I get when I walk into an ice cream parlour and the luxury of having so many choices can be "heady". It's one of those treats that I save for special occasions.

My favourite haunt is Island Cremery at Serene Centre in Singapore. It has local flavours like Kopi (strong local coffee) and Ice Kachang (a great ice dessert for tropical weather). It's a wonderful place to catch up with a friend or just sit down in a corner and "process stuff". The only change I'd make to ice cream is to slow down the melt-down so that I can savour it longer :-)

Learning the guitar

I've been taking weekly guitar lessons for 9 months now and have progressed from muffled plunking sounds to distinguishable chords and strums. At several points I had wanted to give up, especially when I compared myself with classmates who seem to move nimbly and effortlessly between chords and rhythms and wondered if I was ever going to get there. But when I thought of how far I had come - from ground zero to being able to play simple songs and rhythms - I take heart. Now I am grappling with finger plucking and hammer-ons (it's creating a new and higher note by hammering down on an already ringing string on a new fret) and feel that I am standing at the foot of another mountain. Getting one finger to straddle 3 strings on a fret and pulling off a hammer-on seems an impossible task to me. I am learning about perseverance - maybe this time I'll get there sooner than 9 months!

Hanging out with Kids

One of my favourite things to do is to hang out with my nephews. They are pre-schoolers and are teaching me alot about life, particularly what's really important and how to have fun. It is therapeutic for me. Sunday evenings is family time and whenever we can, we'd go to the park with their scooters and convert it into a Formula One race track with a digital stopwatch and all. Another favourite activity is gravity defying swings - I'd run forward, grabbing the swing with kid in tow and let go at the last minute. It's the simple things in life that makes us happy!

A Legacy

Recently, a friend of mine passed away after a 3-year battle with cancer. She had started an outreach program for women with the vision of "empowering women to empower women" - her goal was to equip and encourage women to help troubled women. She had put up her home for rental and moved into a bigger place so that she could have more space to hold events, life skills courses and counselling sessions. With the help of friends, she organised parties to raise awareness as well as had fun clubs like jewellry making, simple cooking classes and movie nights.

When she first started on this journey, we were reluctantly supportive. Most of us are working professionals and felt apprehensive about getting involved with "troubled women". We have no training in counselling nor did we have time on our hands. In her last 6 months, she had planted some seeds in her gentle and unassuming way in the hope of having some of us build on the foundation she laid.

Since her death, one lady has said "yes" to taking up the role of Program Director and a few of us have formed a committee to continue the initiatives that she started as well as raise funds for this cause. A couple more have signed up for counselling courses so that they can be equipped to help those in need and a few trained counsellors may volunteer their services pro bono. What she founded is taking a life of its own. It's made me see the truth in this statement - "the seed must die in order for it to bear fruit".

Changing perspective

I've been shortsighted since I was nine from reading all kinds of storybooks in bed. Putting on my glasses really does make a difference for me. Recently, I've acquired a new pair of glasses called "coaching" and it's changing the way I look at people and myself. I especially like this statement that a coach shared - mentoring is imparting to a person my knowledge and experience; coaching is drawing out from the person what is already in them - it's believing that they already have the answers and simply providing the support that they need to find them. That's truly empowering!

Little Red Dot

Singapore (or what we sometimes call "the little red dot" - a term made famous by Tommy Koh and Chang Li Lim's book of the same name) is where I was raised and now live. Much has been said about this tiny nation, its achievements and idiosyncracies. For me, it's where most of my family are; it's relatively safe; most things are well run; hawker food is cheap with regulated hygiene standards, public transportation is good. It's a hodge podge of cultures and influences.

Like Singapore, I've bits of different things - part Peranakan and part Teochew; part Asian and part Western in my thinking. I'm also of the "in-between" generation in Singapore, old enough to remember when there were rubber estates with the reek of vulcanized rubber and tugboats huddled together by the godowns of downtown Singapore, yet young enough to enjoy video games, roller coasters and fast food.

The Rambutan

I've decided to name this blog "Rambutan Tree" because it holds alot of happy memories for me. One of my earliest recollections as a child was climbing up the low hanging branches of the trees in my grand-aunt's house and perching on its branches while I helped myself to the succulent, sweet fruit. Every now and then, I would flick off the little black ants which scampered up and down the branches and dropped a few fruits down to my brother who was afraid of heights :-)

Rambutan or nephelium lappaceum is a tropical tree, native to South East Asia. There are a number of varieties (including the yellow fruited kind) and they grow to a height of 10-20 m. The best part, of course, is the round or oval fruit. You can pop off the reddish skin covered with soft spines by squeezing it in between your hands (you may get a squirt or two of juice in your eye). Your reward is the sweet, succulent flesh which is hard to resist(note though that the seed is toxic). Needless to say, it's my favourite fruit.

Like the rambutan, I was born in SE Asia, in Kuching, Sarawak - the year of my birth saw a bumper crop of durians, so much so that they were thrown out and rotted on the streets. My mother attributes my aversion to this other tropical fruit to the stench that hung over the town like a stale blanket. To this day, the great divide in my family has been those who love and hate the durian fruit.